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ventaSo, as advertised last week, I went off to a pre-Whitby gig:
Don't be fooled by the name, by the way. It's the Kentish Town Forum, now no longer sponsored by HMV, and re-named again.
The logistics of getting myself out of work, on a train to London, across London and up to the Forum meant I missed seeing George Frakes, the first support act. I'd done a little homework online, and found out that he was a rather folky-sounding, acoustic-y singer. Quite nice, but I doubted he was going to be up to competing with the racket at a Forum-sized venue (which I think![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eniel confirmed). Anyway, if that sounds like your thing, there are some pleasant listenables to be had.
Anyway, in the Forum ChrisC tooled off to the bar, and came back looking confused. He's not a beer-drinker, but careful training has rendered him capable of picking the most appropriate (or least inappropriate) beer-a-like for me from most bars. The Forum defeated him, though, and he dispatched me to sort my own drinks out.
Sadly, I was almost as confused. They really do have the most horrible-looking lineup. No bitter at all, not even tins of creamflow nastiness. Budweiser. Stella. Some other things I have forgotten because they were so unspeakable. I came back rather surprised with a pint of Guinness. Bah.
Anyway, I had barely got over ranting about that when Larry and his Flask came on stage. I'd also done some practise listening to them online beforehand, and been quite impressed but live they were fabulous.
Five blokes - guitar, banjo, standy-up performing drummer, double bass and singer-with-other-guitar. They play what I'm going to go with calling pyschobilly country, and they have a monstrous amount of stage-presence and energy. I inferred that not many people really knew their stuff, but they had the whole Forum on side in no time at all.
Four of them singing, plus the double bassist leaping, sprinting and dancing round the stage (while playing, of course). Then suddenly a trombone solo.. a what? Oh, that guy's slung his banjo round his back and whipped out a trombone; I was so distracted by the stage-diving guitarist and the drummer leaping onto his kit that I didn't notice. Wait, where's that harmonica come from? I see, the bassist is playing it, so that must be the other guitarist filling in on slap bass... I also didn't know it was safe to stand on a double bass, but apparently that's what the double bassist does. Just for his euphonium solo, you understand...
Anyway, they were excellent. You can stream an entire album if you're willing to tolerate Bandcamp's ridiculous lack of volume control. I highly recommend it :)
I was kind of late to the Frank Turner party, have only really discovered him a year ago. I've been eating my way through his back catalogue though, and getting myself up to speed on his new album, so this time round I was able to sing along with the best of them.
By which I mean everyone. Mr Turner (and the Sleeping Souls) have very enthusiastic audiences, who'll dance and sing along to anything. The gigs remind me a lot of NMA gigs a decade ago - not that he sounds anything like them, just in terms of the atmosphere. This was the last show of this tour, and he retrieved from the audience a flag he'd given out at the first show, which had been faithfully passed from one set of fans to another to make sure it followed him all the way round the country.
And he really does write good songs. Songs that tell stories, songs with people you can believe in in them. Even songs which make you feel that the human race isn't quite doomed. And songs with proper tunes and huge choruses. (The biggest problem of having had the new album on while cooking is that I've had to keep knocking off to dance round the kitchen to Four Simple Words and Plain Sailing Weather [both a bit sweary, if you want warning].)
And Frank Turner gives the impression of being a massively nice guy. OK, so virtually no one comes on stage and tries to make out they're a dick, but he does seem like a nice bloke.
In fact, I'm officially promoting him to one of my favourite live acts around at present.
Don't be fooled by the name, by the way. It's the Kentish Town Forum, now no longer sponsored by HMV, and re-named again.
The logistics of getting myself out of work, on a train to London, across London and up to the Forum meant I missed seeing George Frakes, the first support act. I'd done a little homework online, and found out that he was a rather folky-sounding, acoustic-y singer. Quite nice, but I doubted he was going to be up to competing with the racket at a Forum-sized venue (which I think
eniel confirmed). Anyway, if that sounds like your thing, there are some pleasant listenables to be had.Anyway, in the Forum ChrisC tooled off to the bar, and came back looking confused. He's not a beer-drinker, but careful training has rendered him capable of picking the most appropriate (or least inappropriate) beer-a-like for me from most bars. The Forum defeated him, though, and he dispatched me to sort my own drinks out.
Sadly, I was almost as confused. They really do have the most horrible-looking lineup. No bitter at all, not even tins of creamflow nastiness. Budweiser. Stella. Some other things I have forgotten because they were so unspeakable. I came back rather surprised with a pint of Guinness. Bah.
Anyway, I had barely got over ranting about that when Larry and his Flask came on stage. I'd also done some practise listening to them online beforehand, and been quite impressed but live they were fabulous.
Five blokes - guitar, banjo, standy-up performing drummer, double bass and singer-with-other-guitar. They play what I'm going to go with calling pyschobilly country, and they have a monstrous amount of stage-presence and energy. I inferred that not many people really knew their stuff, but they had the whole Forum on side in no time at all.
Four of them singing, plus the double bassist leaping, sprinting and dancing round the stage (while playing, of course). Then suddenly a trombone solo.. a what? Oh, that guy's slung his banjo round his back and whipped out a trombone; I was so distracted by the stage-diving guitarist and the drummer leaping onto his kit that I didn't notice. Wait, where's that harmonica come from? I see, the bassist is playing it, so that must be the other guitarist filling in on slap bass... I also didn't know it was safe to stand on a double bass, but apparently that's what the double bassist does. Just for his euphonium solo, you understand...
Anyway, they were excellent. You can stream an entire album if you're willing to tolerate Bandcamp's ridiculous lack of volume control. I highly recommend it :)
I was kind of late to the Frank Turner party, have only really discovered him a year ago. I've been eating my way through his back catalogue though, and getting myself up to speed on his new album, so this time round I was able to sing along with the best of them.
By which I mean everyone. Mr Turner (and the Sleeping Souls) have very enthusiastic audiences, who'll dance and sing along to anything. The gigs remind me a lot of NMA gigs a decade ago - not that he sounds anything like them, just in terms of the atmosphere. This was the last show of this tour, and he retrieved from the audience a flag he'd given out at the first show, which had been faithfully passed from one set of fans to another to make sure it followed him all the way round the country.
And he really does write good songs. Songs that tell stories, songs with people you can believe in in them. Even songs which make you feel that the human race isn't quite doomed. And songs with proper tunes and huge choruses. (The biggest problem of having had the new album on while cooking is that I've had to keep knocking off to dance round the kitchen to Four Simple Words and Plain Sailing Weather [both a bit sweary, if you want warning].)
And Frank Turner gives the impression of being a massively nice guy. OK, so virtually no one comes on stage and tries to make out they're a dick, but he does seem like a nice bloke.
In fact, I'm officially promoting him to one of my favourite live acts around at present.
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no subject
Date: 2013-04-30 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 08:01 am (UTC)(I'm not offended by the second verse of that, but I can understand how someone might be.)
no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 08:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 09:09 am (UTC)I agree that it might have been more interesting if the person who rates themselves by appearance were male, but noone's lyrics are 100% awesome and I'll tolerate that line if it means I also get to keep I'm setting fire to all my vanities and doubts to keep warm.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 05:26 pm (UTC)They turn out to be... during DV8 and November Whitby. I seem to remember you might find that interesting to know.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 05:43 pm (UTC)I am really quite tempted by DV8 + A4s.
Apropos of nothing much, I finally got round to downloading a Rhombus album (legally, I might add) and was greatly amused to find it had a song called 4472 on it.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-01 05:46 pm (UTC)I heard 4472 at a gig first; did a bit of a double-take when I realised what it's about. It's a good job they didn't try to use the BR number; 60103 would not scan nearly so well.